EILEEN Meynell visits her husband every day but she lost the man she fell in love with years ago.

The Billingham grandma realised she was losing Len to dementia when he sat with their grandson on his knee one day and asked him who he was.

“It’s like being a widow but the person’s still there,” said Mrs Meynell, 75, who acted as her husband’s full-time carer for 11 years before it started to have a serious effect on her own health.

“He looks like your soulmate but he is not.”

She said the former ICI worker needed 24-hour care when dementia took hold.

Even at night Mrs Meynell could not rest as she would often wake to find her husband wandering the streets.

“You live in this bubble, you don’t live in the real world any more,” she said.

“Once I woke at 3am and he was trying to pull the front door off. He wanted to go home to his mum and dad who had been dead 20 years.

“He used to dig holes in the garden and fill them back in. I’m sure the neighbours thought we had a mole in the garden.”

She said she had to stop the grandchildren coming round when he no longer recognised them in case he frightened them.

“I remember him saying to me ‘Who are these children?’ and when I told him they were our grandchildren he just said ‘I don’t think so’.”

Mr Meynell, 81, was moved into a care home last June but Mrs Meynell, a retired chef, said she has still not got over him being in a home even though it is a wonderful place.

“The hardest thing in the world is to let them go.”

The couple met 60 years ago when Mr Meynell came out of the Navy. Four years later they were married and they devoted their lives to their two children and six grandchildren.

“He was a very kind and loving man.

“His whole world was me and the children and the grandchildren. He was a wonderful grandad.”

Mrs Meynell is now calling on health and social care teams to improve dementia care - particularly end of life care.

She said: “If you have cancer you can die with dignity but if you have dementia there’s no such thing.”

Supported by The George Hardwick Foundation, The Alzheimer’s Society and Corinne Walsh, Stockton Council’s older people’s mental health co-ordinator, Mrs Meynell has launched a campaign to improve the services available to dementia patients.

“My daughter-in-law died of cancer. She had wonderful Macmillan nurses and end of life hospice care and that’s all we are asking for dementia.

“Hospices won’t take them because they are too disruptive so they are put in a hospital bay with three other people that don’t have dementia.”

Mrs Meynell is calling for hospitals to provide holistic wards with specialist nurses for dementia patients who are approaching their final days so they are not placed on wards with other patients who do not understand the condition which can cause people to become uncharacteristically aggressive.

“When they build the new hospital I think they could incorporate this into it.

“I’m not just doing this for my Len. We have got to do it right for future generations.

“Dementia is the modern day plague and it’s going to get worse. In 10 years it’s going to increase tenfold.”

Mrs Meynell has also been speaking to trainee nurses and doctors to give them a better understanding of the condition.

Dementia has cruelly robbed her of her husband but occasionally she still gets a glimpse of the man she fell in love with.

She said half the time she looks into his eyes and gets an opaque look, and there’s nothing there which is heartbreaking, but now and again his face will light up in recognition and he tells her he loves her.

“For me, that makes my year.”

The Department of Health's National Dementia Strategy recently highlighted that the end of life care for people with dementia is a national issue.

A spokesperson for Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust said: “As a specialist provider in dementia care we are already looking at how we can build on the excellent work that is already taking place. Trust staff have been trained in end of life care and palliative care and in Hartlepool are working in partnership with care homes and Macmillan Nurses to improve care for people with dementia.

“Care home liaison staff are also working with eleven care homes in Hartlepool, which recently signed up to carry out accreditation for a nationally recognised award for delivering end of life care.

“We will be supporting the rolling out of these projects across all trust areas.”

A spokeswoman for the University Hospital of North Tees said: “We are constantly raising our staff’s awareness and educating them about caring for patients with illnesses like dementia.

“We are planning for the new hospital to have 100% single rooms which would enable relatives, carers and friends to spend more time with patients with dementia.”

For more information on the campaign or to find out more about the support available locally for carers contact The George Hardwick Foundation on 0845 3025523.

Facts about illness

DEMENTIA causes the (usually gradual) loss of mental abilities such as thinking, remembering and reasoning.

The most common symptoms include loss of memory, confusion, and changes in personality, mood and behaviour.

About one in 20 people over the age of 65 and one in six over 85 will go on to develop some degree of dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting about 400,000 people in the UK.

New research predicts the number of people suffering from dementia in UK will rise to 1 million by 2025.

Primary Care Trusts on Teesside treat an estimated 1,861 dementia sufferers, but research from the Alzheimer’s Society suggests the number of Teessiders with the condition is actually nearer to 5,267.